August 6, 2021 • 13 mins
Revolutionary blues maven Janis Joplin achieved rock icon status when the Rock Hall honored her in 1995 - her first year of eligibility. Melissa Etheridge, an outsider and activist in her own right, pays tribute to the woman she deems “the only goddess in a sea of rock gods.”
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yah, Welcome to Induction Vault, a production of I Heart
Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. M hmmm,
(00:31):
revolutionary blues maybe in Janice Joplin achieved rock icon status
when the Rock Hall honored her in her first year
of eligibility following a raw, stripped down acoustic performance of
Peace of My Heart. Melissa Ethridge, an outsider and activist
in her own right, pays tribute to the woman she
deems the only goddess in a sea of rock gods.
(00:53):
A rebel and a beatnik from a small Texas town,
Janice's career paved the way for women like Melissa, music
stians who blazed their own paths and refused to perform.
Melissa wonders what could have been had Janice survived, imagining
the singer recording an MTV unplugged album or championing women's
rights that she was still around. Janice sister Laura, brother Michael,
(01:17):
and friend Bob Gordon accept the award on her behalf,
lauding her authenticity and compassion. This knight confirmed what fans
have known all along that rock and roll history wouldn't
be complete without Janice Jackline. It's a real honor, and
(01:47):
it's very exciting and it's uh something I've never done,
but something I'm very honored to do. Janice Lynn Joplin
was born in January nine in Port Arthur, Texas. And
I can sort of imagin and what that was like
growing up in a small town because I grew up
in a small town myself, but it was the forties
and fifties that she grew up in, and from what
(02:08):
I gather, it wasn't easy for Janie. From the very start.
She was very different. She was a rebel and a
beat nick. She was taunted and ridiculed and the other
kids would throw pennies and rocks at her because she
looked different and because she acted different, and in all
areas of her life she refused to conform. She asserted
her freedom. She painted and she wrote poetry, and at
(02:30):
this tender period of her life she discovered the blues,
and after high school she got out of Port Port
Arthur and explored the the hippie culture in Austin, Texas. First,
she used to carry an auto harp around with her
at all times and and would perform at the local
(02:50):
coffee houses and the bars and the student union and
the now famous Thread Gills in Austin, Texas. She traveled
to the West Coast and dabbled in performing in l
A and San France Cisco. She also discovered the drug
culture and immersed herself in it like everything else in
her life. Full on the drinking, the grass, acid, heroin, speed,
(03:11):
and sex with men and women. That was what a
young person did at the time, and it wasn't wrong
or even considered dangerous then. It was an attempt to
expand one mind, one's mind and heart to the possibilities
of life other than what one was taught by society.
She came home to Port Arthur one more time in
n actually an effort to slow down and grasp what
(03:33):
she was really, what she really wanted out of life.
She enrolled in secretarial school. She smoothed down her wild
hair into a bouffont and even got engaged. But it
didn't work. She couldn't do it. She couldn't lie down
and conformed to the standards of small town Texas. So
when she got an offer to join a band in
(03:54):
the Bay Area, she returned to San Francisco and joined
Big Brother and the Holding Company. Yeah the Big Brother
signed in August of six with the Mainstream Records. They
played the Monterey Pop Festival and their first album was released.
And then Columbia Records brought out the Mainstream contract in
(04:17):
March and they released Cheap Thrills. It reached number one
and it stayed there for eight weeks. This all happened
at a time when hate Ashbury scene was in full bloom.
Without trying, Janice became an icon. She was the only
goddess in a sea of rock gods. Posters of her
(04:39):
were sold right next to those of Hendricks, Leary and
other heroes of the time. The posters depicted a wild thing,
half nude hair, flying an image completely different from any
other woman in the public eye at that time. In
Janice split from Big Brother and formed a new band
called The Cosmic Blues Band. They played all through nine
(05:01):
and in October they released I Got Them Old Cosmic
Blues Again, Mama. In September of nineteen seventy, Janie started
recording a new album with a new band, the Full
Tilt Boogie Band. She had recorded the tracks, sang all
the vocals except for one buried Alive in the Blues,
and it was never finished. On October nine seventy, after
(05:25):
a good day in the recording studio, Jannis dropped by
for a few drinks at her regular watering hole, Barney's Meanery.
Friends she had planned to meet up with her that
night had stood her up, so Janice Chopolate went back
to her Hollywood hotel alone. She bought a pack of
Marble reds. She chatted with the hotel clerk, and went
to her room. The next day, Janis Joplin was found
(05:48):
dead at age seven from a heroin overdose. Janice once
said she became a singer because a friend loaned her
his Bessie Smith and Lead Belly records. Janice said of
Bessie's myth, she showed me the air and taught me
how to fill it. Before Janice died, she even paid
tribute to Bessie by buying a headstone for her unmarked grave.
(06:12):
Janice was the sixties. She was the style, the sound
inspiration for men and women all over the world. She
wasn't playing a character like the rebel in the high
school in Port Arthur. She was just being herself. Even
when she was a full fledged rock star, she was
ridiculed for her dress and her looks from being different
(06:33):
than others. Yet she never apologized, never backed away from
the truth. Instead, she stood fast in her beliefs. To
her fans, she was a goddess. She was the passion
and power of love and freedom. Men and women both
felt it, understood it, and felt understood themselves. I remember
the first time I heard Janice Joplin. I was ten
(06:56):
years old. My parents had purchased the album Pearl. I
remember listening to the songs as I studied the album
cover and wondering about this crazy woman in feathers and beads,
smiling on laying on that couch. I had never heard
the blues. I had never heard Bessie or Odetta or
Lead Belly, but I was hearing them. Then, when I
(07:19):
was nineteen, I discovered her other work and it grabbed me.
I wanted to explode like that, I wanted to feel
like that, and I wanted to sing like that. Yes,
Jannis Joplin was a junkie. Yes she was an alcoholic.
Yes she was promiscuous men women. She made no excuse
for it. In nineteen sixty seven, Jannis Joplin was strange
(07:40):
and freakish. But I think today she would be pretty
hip she would be alternative, and I think so she
would do quite well and uh because of what she did.
I feel like what she did in her life at
that time enabled me when I was a young girl
in nineteen seventy six growing up not to feel so
(08:01):
strange about wanting to do the things I wanted to do.
She gave me power in my life. We didn't have
to be secretaries or house housewives. We could be rock stars.
I never knew Janice. I never saw her or heard
her voice live. I never witnessed the fireball of fury
that she unleased on stage. But I think I understand
(08:25):
when a soul can look on the world and see
and feel the pain and loneliness and can reach deep
down inside and find a voice to sing a bit,
a soul can heal and hers did. I wish. I
wish the dose of heroin she injected that night had
not been ten times accidentally, ten times stronger than what
(08:48):
her usual hit was. I wish she was here with us.
I wish she was making a comeback right now and
doing an MTV Unplugged. I'm getting her tribute album together
and standing up and swimmen's rights or get four women's rights,
standing up for gay rights, standing up for intolerance everywhere,
against fern Republicans or whatever she I think she would
(09:10):
be doing that, I absolutely do. I wish she would
have survived. Then maybe I could tell her, thank you,
thank you for traveling that road, for carrying that ball
in chain, for giving a piece of her heart. I
wish I could congratulate her personally, tell her she will
(09:32):
always be a part of rock and roll history, that
she helped create it, lived by it, and died by it.
I wish I could say to her now, welcome, Welcome
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a place
you so definitely deserved to be. After the break, we'll
(09:56):
hear from Jenesis, friend and family on the Rock and
Roll Hall of fa in Ducts involved. You know, one
of the things that Janice said that I like the
most is that you need to be true to yourself
because yourself is all you got. And obviously what was
most powerful and most important to Janice was music and
(10:19):
her ability to find her emotion and share that with people.
To hear from her public and from the industry that
she is still communicating and being there with them is
very moving for me and I thank you. I just
wanted to thank everybody with the Rock and Roll Hall
(10:40):
of Fame. It's a it's a really nice thing. Next
week is Janice's birthday and it's a really cool present. Uh.
I just really wish it was she was up here
instead of me. That's all I got. Thanks. This event
reminds me of a story about Janice and it involves
(11:03):
Ahmed earned again. There was a party at my home
in Los Angeles while Janice was recording the Pearl album
and Bob Krasnow was there, and Ahmed was there, and
Janice sort of spontaneously saying Mercedes Benz to the plause
of the gathered people in the record business, and Ahmed
(11:26):
kind of smiled at her and said, if you come
upstairs with me for a while, I'll let you record
the song. And perhaps typical arm And had no interest
in the song, but he was, you know, going for it. Um.
(11:48):
As far as I know, nothing happened. And uh, Janice
never went through the motions. She gave every bit of
herself in every way and every aspect of her life.
I can remember being scared to death while she was
driving on the windy part of Sunset Boulevard at ninety
(12:11):
in her famous Porsche, and of course you've seen just
now and I'm sure know about the incredible passion with
which she sung. Another part of Janice was as kind
of as a philosopher in a way in the society
of the sixties. And I think of her in terms
(12:32):
of three elements, be true to yourself, as Laura just said,
having respect for other people, and being compassionate. Thank you
on behalf of Janice m. Thanks for joining us on
(13:02):
this week's episode of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Induction Vault. For more on your favorite inductees, to shop
inductee merch or to plan your trip to the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, visit rock Hall dot com.
Plus view Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Special
on demand on HBO Max. Our executive producers are Noel Brown,
Shelby Morrison, and Esa Gurkey. Supervising producer is Taylor shakogn
(13:27):
Research and archival assistants from Isabelle Keeper and Shannon Herb.
Thanks again for joining us on this week's episode of
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Vault. Induction Ball
is a production of I Heart Radio and The Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame. For more podcasts from I
(13:47):
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
Yah, Welcome to Induction Vault, a production of I Heart
Radio and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. M hmmm,
(00:31):
revolutionary blues maybe in Janice Joplin achieved rock icon status
when the Rock Hall honored her in her first year
of eligibility following a raw, stripped down acoustic performance of
Peace of My Heart. Melissa Ethridge, an outsider and activist
in her own right, pays tribute to the woman she
deems the only goddess in a sea of rock gods.
(00:53):
A rebel and a beatnik from a small Texas town,
Janice's career paved the way for women like Melissa, music
stians who blazed their own paths and refused to perform.
Melissa wonders what could have been had Janice survived, imagining
the singer recording an MTV unplugged album or championing women's
rights that she was still around. Janice sister Laura, brother Michael,
(01:17):
and friend Bob Gordon accept the award on her behalf,
lauding her authenticity and compassion. This knight confirmed what fans
have known all along that rock and roll history wouldn't
be complete without Janice Jackline. It's a real honor, and
(01:47):
it's very exciting and it's uh something I've never done,
but something I'm very honored to do. Janice Lynn Joplin
was born in January nine in Port Arthur, Texas. And
I can sort of imagin and what that was like
growing up in a small town because I grew up
in a small town myself, but it was the forties
and fifties that she grew up in, and from what
(02:08):
I gather, it wasn't easy for Janie. From the very start.
She was very different. She was a rebel and a
beat nick. She was taunted and ridiculed and the other
kids would throw pennies and rocks at her because she
looked different and because she acted different, and in all
areas of her life she refused to conform. She asserted
her freedom. She painted and she wrote poetry, and at
(02:30):
this tender period of her life she discovered the blues,
and after high school she got out of Port Port
Arthur and explored the the hippie culture in Austin, Texas. First,
she used to carry an auto harp around with her
at all times and and would perform at the local
(02:50):
coffee houses and the bars and the student union and
the now famous Thread Gills in Austin, Texas. She traveled
to the West Coast and dabbled in performing in l
A and San France Cisco. She also discovered the drug
culture and immersed herself in it like everything else in
her life. Full on the drinking, the grass, acid, heroin, speed,
(03:11):
and sex with men and women. That was what a
young person did at the time, and it wasn't wrong
or even considered dangerous then. It was an attempt to
expand one mind, one's mind and heart to the possibilities
of life other than what one was taught by society.
She came home to Port Arthur one more time in
n actually an effort to slow down and grasp what
(03:33):
she was really, what she really wanted out of life.
She enrolled in secretarial school. She smoothed down her wild
hair into a bouffont and even got engaged. But it
didn't work. She couldn't do it. She couldn't lie down
and conformed to the standards of small town Texas. So
when she got an offer to join a band in
(03:54):
the Bay Area, she returned to San Francisco and joined
Big Brother and the Holding Company. Yeah the Big Brother
signed in August of six with the Mainstream Records. They
played the Monterey Pop Festival and their first album was released.
And then Columbia Records brought out the Mainstream contract in
(04:17):
March and they released Cheap Thrills. It reached number one
and it stayed there for eight weeks. This all happened
at a time when hate Ashbury scene was in full bloom.
Without trying, Janice became an icon. She was the only
goddess in a sea of rock gods. Posters of her
(04:39):
were sold right next to those of Hendricks, Leary and
other heroes of the time. The posters depicted a wild thing,
half nude hair, flying an image completely different from any
other woman in the public eye at that time. In
Janice split from Big Brother and formed a new band
called The Cosmic Blues Band. They played all through nine
(05:01):
and in October they released I Got Them Old Cosmic
Blues Again, Mama. In September of nineteen seventy, Janie started
recording a new album with a new band, the Full
Tilt Boogie Band. She had recorded the tracks, sang all
the vocals except for one buried Alive in the Blues,
and it was never finished. On October nine seventy, after
(05:25):
a good day in the recording studio, Jannis dropped by
for a few drinks at her regular watering hole, Barney's Meanery.
Friends she had planned to meet up with her that
night had stood her up, so Janice Chopolate went back
to her Hollywood hotel alone. She bought a pack of
Marble reds. She chatted with the hotel clerk, and went
to her room. The next day, Janis Joplin was found
(05:48):
dead at age seven from a heroin overdose. Janice once
said she became a singer because a friend loaned her
his Bessie Smith and Lead Belly records. Janice said of
Bessie's myth, she showed me the air and taught me
how to fill it. Before Janice died, she even paid
tribute to Bessie by buying a headstone for her unmarked grave.
(06:12):
Janice was the sixties. She was the style, the sound
inspiration for men and women all over the world. She
wasn't playing a character like the rebel in the high
school in Port Arthur. She was just being herself. Even
when she was a full fledged rock star, she was
ridiculed for her dress and her looks from being different
(06:33):
than others. Yet she never apologized, never backed away from
the truth. Instead, she stood fast in her beliefs. To
her fans, she was a goddess. She was the passion
and power of love and freedom. Men and women both
felt it, understood it, and felt understood themselves. I remember
the first time I heard Janice Joplin. I was ten
(06:56):
years old. My parents had purchased the album Pearl. I
remember listening to the songs as I studied the album
cover and wondering about this crazy woman in feathers and beads,
smiling on laying on that couch. I had never heard
the blues. I had never heard Bessie or Odetta or
Lead Belly, but I was hearing them. Then, when I
(07:19):
was nineteen, I discovered her other work and it grabbed me.
I wanted to explode like that, I wanted to feel
like that, and I wanted to sing like that. Yes,
Jannis Joplin was a junkie. Yes she was an alcoholic.
Yes she was promiscuous men women. She made no excuse
for it. In nineteen sixty seven, Jannis Joplin was strange
(07:40):
and freakish. But I think today she would be pretty
hip she would be alternative, and I think so she
would do quite well and uh because of what she did.
I feel like what she did in her life at
that time enabled me when I was a young girl
in nineteen seventy six growing up not to feel so
(08:01):
strange about wanting to do the things I wanted to do.
She gave me power in my life. We didn't have
to be secretaries or house housewives. We could be rock stars.
I never knew Janice. I never saw her or heard
her voice live. I never witnessed the fireball of fury
that she unleased on stage. But I think I understand
(08:25):
when a soul can look on the world and see
and feel the pain and loneliness and can reach deep
down inside and find a voice to sing a bit,
a soul can heal and hers did. I wish. I
wish the dose of heroin she injected that night had
not been ten times accidentally, ten times stronger than what
(08:48):
her usual hit was. I wish she was here with us.
I wish she was making a comeback right now and
doing an MTV Unplugged. I'm getting her tribute album together
and standing up and swimmen's rights or get four women's rights,
standing up for gay rights, standing up for intolerance everywhere,
against fern Republicans or whatever she I think she would
(09:10):
be doing that, I absolutely do. I wish she would
have survived. Then maybe I could tell her, thank you,
thank you for traveling that road, for carrying that ball
in chain, for giving a piece of her heart. I
wish I could congratulate her personally, tell her she will
(09:32):
always be a part of rock and roll history, that
she helped create it, lived by it, and died by it.
I wish I could say to her now, welcome, Welcome
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a place
you so definitely deserved to be. After the break, we'll
(09:56):
hear from Jenesis, friend and family on the Rock and
Roll Hall of fa in Ducts involved. You know, one
of the things that Janice said that I like the
most is that you need to be true to yourself
because yourself is all you got. And obviously what was
most powerful and most important to Janice was music and
(10:19):
her ability to find her emotion and share that with people.
To hear from her public and from the industry that
she is still communicating and being there with them is
very moving for me and I thank you. I just
wanted to thank everybody with the Rock and Roll Hall
(10:40):
of Fame. It's a it's a really nice thing. Next
week is Janice's birthday and it's a really cool present. Uh.
I just really wish it was she was up here
instead of me. That's all I got. Thanks. This event
reminds me of a story about Janice and it involves
(11:03):
Ahmed earned again. There was a party at my home
in Los Angeles while Janice was recording the Pearl album
and Bob Krasnow was there, and Ahmed was there, and
Janice sort of spontaneously saying Mercedes Benz to the plause
of the gathered people in the record business, and Ahmed
(11:26):
kind of smiled at her and said, if you come
upstairs with me for a while, I'll let you record
the song. And perhaps typical arm And had no interest
in the song, but he was, you know, going for it. Um.
(11:48):
As far as I know, nothing happened. And uh, Janice
never went through the motions. She gave every bit of
herself in every way and every aspect of her life.
I can remember being scared to death while she was
driving on the windy part of Sunset Boulevard at ninety
(12:11):
in her famous Porsche, and of course you've seen just
now and I'm sure know about the incredible passion with
which she sung. Another part of Janice was as kind
of as a philosopher in a way in the society
of the sixties. And I think of her in terms
(12:32):
of three elements, be true to yourself, as Laura just said,
having respect for other people, and being compassionate. Thank you
on behalf of Janice m. Thanks for joining us on
(13:02):
this week's episode of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Induction Vault. For more on your favorite inductees, to shop
inductee merch or to plan your trip to the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame, visit rock Hall dot com.
Plus view Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Special
on demand on HBO Max. Our executive producers are Noel Brown,
Shelby Morrison, and Esa Gurkey. Supervising producer is Taylor shakogn
(13:27):
Research and archival assistants from Isabelle Keeper and Shannon Herb.
Thanks again for joining us on this week's episode of
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Vault. Induction Ball
is a production of I Heart Radio and The Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame. For more podcasts from I
(13:47):
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
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